Millennials are obsessed with houseplants. Becoming a “plant parent” seems to be all the rage now for 20- to 35-year-olds. Millennials love plants so much, that in the last three years, houseplant sales in the U.S. have increased 50 per cent to $1.7 billion, according to the National Gardening Association. To learn more about how Generation Y isn’t killing this industry, watch the video above, or read the transcript below.

Millennials have made a wide range of things trendy: avocado toast, kale, financial instability and more recently, plants.

Yeah, millennials are obsessed with plants

There’s the monstera deliciosa, the snake plant, various kinds of succulents and the current plant that’s got us in a frenzy: the fiddle leaf fig tree — which doesn’t produce any figs.

Full disclosure: I’m a millennial and I own all of the plants I just mentioned.

In the U.S., houseplant sales have increased 50 per cent in the last three years to $1.7 billion, according to the National Gardening Association. Statistics Canada doesn’t break down houseplant versus garden plant sales, but overall plant sales increased by eight per cent to $1.5 billion from 2013 to 2018.

It could be that millennials, having delayed parenthood and home ownership, decided to fill their tiny, overpriced apartments with a philodendron instead of Fido.

I mean, if you decide to peace out for two weekends at Coachella, your plants most likely will be alive when you return. Your dog? Not so much.

Darryl Cheng is a 36-year-old Instagram plant influencer in Toronto. He garnered a huge following and a book deal from his love of plants. He says plants offer meaning and fulfillment in millennials lives without all the commitments that come with pet ownership.

“We want a sense of stability in our lives and plants well — I think the root of the word planted means that the thing is established. And so when we see well-established plants inside a space, it gives us a sense of stability and that this place is well-lived. And also plants are a relatively cheap hobby. They’re not that expensive. So, it’s easy to fill up a space with plants to really get that established feeling,” Cheng said.

Plants have been a staple of the home for decades. In the 50s and 60s, it was the African violet. In the 70s, spider plants were all the rage. In the 80s and 90s, you weren’t with the times unless you had a potted ficus and in the 2000s, you probably had terrariums.

What makes this decade so different? The fiddle leaf fig and its trendy plant pals infiltrated millennials’ hearts and homes by way of social media like Instagram. With whatever disposable income cash-strapped millennials have, they’re filling their homes with tropical plants.

If you search the hashtag plantsofinstagram, you’ll see that there are nearly three million posts featuring green flora. In typical millennial fashion, the millions of pictures feature minimal white backgrounds and include everything from a single, beautiful monstera to a full out urban jungle in someone’s home.

Millennials are so plant-obsessed, they’re even calling themselves plant parents and naming their plants. I bet boomers weren’t going around calling the hallway ficus a plant baby. They were probably, you know, tending to their actual babies.

The Produce Marketing Association says plants are “white hot” in culture right now mainly because of their aesthetics. Plant pics are the new food photos crowding our feeds — their ubiquity is inescapable. Your annoying cousin who would always Instagram every single meal is now bombarding you with her succulents.

The PMA also suggests that millennials feel plants give meaning to their often hectic lives, adding to the holistic living trend. Instead of making green, we’re planting it.

Millennials are even ordering plants online.

New York-based company The Sill has tapped into the typically e-commerce-averse plant market. They have a loyalty club called the Plant Parent Club and — jumping on the Netflix bandwagon — they also have a monthly plant subscription service. Yeah, they send a plant to you every month.

The plant craze has permeated all corners of the internet, you can even buy your plant babies on Amazon.

Baby boomers love to complain about all the industries millennials kill, but the houseplant market seems to be going through a boom right now, thanks to us.

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